Universal Copper Ltd. announced the Company is continuing to update a comprehensive study of the historical exploration data at its district-sized, 39,000-hectare flagship Poplar Copper Project (the “Poplar”), located southwest of Houston, B.C. The Company believes the historic resource at Poplar can be significantly increased by both expansion of mineralization to the west and at depth and by defining new resources at a number of high priority exploration targets.
Following up on the April 21, 2021 and April 27, 2021 news releases on the northern priority targets and southwestern priority targets, the Company is introducing the remaining priority target areas in the northeastern property area: Alder and an unnamed target to the north of Duck Lake.
These northeastern exploration targets appear to share the same similar characteristics as the northern and southwestern targets:
- significant fault structures.
- prominent alteration halos.
- geophysical signatures indicative of intrusives that commonly host porphyry mineralization.
- unlike the other targets these two targets exhibit significant till copper geochemistry.
Universal Copper CEO, Clive Massey commented, “With copper prices at record highs, over CAD$5.00 per pound driven by the globe’s rapid recognition that copper is the green material of the future, we look forward to continuing to exploit the Poplar’s exploration targets with this season’s drilling program. The market for electric vehicles (EV) is rapidly evolving as leading car manufacturers debut new products, with global EV sales projected to exceed 12.2 million by 2025. The growing electrification market will have a substantial impact on copper demand with charging infrastructure expected to reach some 115,000 tonnes (253.5 million pounds) by 2025. As copper consumption surges globally, the Poplar project will remain our long-term focus that we will continue to explore and potentially increase the existing resource.”
Detailed descriptions of the targets are as follows:
Alder
The Alder target, lying immediately to the north of the Poplar deposit itself, is cut by parallel northwest trending interpreted faults. A north trending buried intrusive is interpreted from the arcuate magnetic and EM trends, with interpreted buried intrusions also lying to the west and north of the target. Till geochemistry shows significant anomalous copper south of the target area, likely related to Poplar, as ice movement is thought to be SW to NE. However, significant anomalous copper till geochemistry lies to the north that may not be related to Poplar. A Long Wave InfraRed (“LWIR”) sericite and magnetite anomalies lie at the eastern and western ends of the target area located in and around interpreted intrusives.
Duck Lake
The Duck Lake target was not identified from the airborne EM. However, it lies at the heart of two NE trending interpreted faults with an associated, buried intrusive interpreted from the arcuate magnetic and EM trends. Till geochemistry shows significant anomalous copper to both the south and the north of the interpreted intrusive. LWIR magnetite anomalies appear to surround the interpreted intrusive. Based on the suspect ice flow direction from SW to NE, the copper anomalies to the north of the target are very interesting.
Methodology
LWIR analysis, through proprietary processing of ASTER satellite data, has the ability to map or identify, through reflectance spectroscopy against a set of known standards, mineral distribution over extremely large areas covered by vegetation and shallow cover. The ground-penetrating nature of infrared radiation in the longwave bands allows viewing of mineral spectra in the first 30 to 60 cm of the earth’s surface through dense vegetation.
The geophysical data relied upon was the 2009 airborne magnetic and Electro Magnetic (EM) survey. The buried intrusives appear to exhibit a conductive rim with a more resistant core in EM response, and a magnetic high core with a low magnetic rim in the magnetic response. The interpreted intrusive trend was checked for conformity with the interpreted faults and then alteration responses either directly over or at the edge of the intrusives from the LWIR data, and finally, the bedrock geology.
About Poplar
The 39,280-hectare Poplar Project is road accessible, traversed by a 138-Kva power line, accessible via rail and only 88kms to Houston, B.C. or 400km to the port at Prince Rupert B.C. The property is located in a historic mining area, only 35kms from the Huckleberry Mine and 42kms from Equity Silver.
The Poplar Deposit has several positive attributes as follows:
- Access is by logging roads 8 kms from a major access road.
- Affordable grid power is available within 4 kms of the deposit.
- Established mining district, with past and present producers located nearby, including Huckleberry (Imperial), Bell Copper (Glencore) and other exploration/development properties nearby Berg (Surge Copper).
- Exploration can be conducted year-round.
Qualified Person
The technical content of this New Release has been reviewed and approved by R. Tim Henneberry, P.Geo (BC) a member of the Company’s Advisory Board and a Qualified Person under National Instrument 43-101.
About Universal Copper
Universal Copper Ltd. is a Canadian-based copper exploration company focused on the acquisition and exploration of copper properties. The Company’s management team has many years of experience in exploration, finance and efficient public company management. Universal’s current focus is on advancing the Poplar Copper Project, one of the most advanced pre-production copper projects in British Columbia with a historic 43-101 resource.
